The influence of automation and robotics on the performance construction

Ger Maas , and Frans van Gassel

Faculty of Building, Architecture and Planning, Eindhoven University of Technology,
P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Available online 27 October 2004.

Abstract

In the decades to come, building production will concentrate in the metropolitan centres
of the world due to the migration of the world's population to the major cities.

An improvement of the construction process in densely populated inner cities will be the
task of the future. This focuses on performance management, construction engineering
and construction management. New developments being discussed in this field are new
design strategies, human machine technologies, employee safety, progress monitoring,
distributed production information and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).

Keywords: Value creation; Performance management; Construction engineering;

Construction management; Automation; Metropolis

Article Outline

1. Introduction
1.1. The building industry tomorrow
1.2. Changes in construction
1.3. Examples of developments by automation
2. Developments in automation in construction
2.1. Automation in performance management: the development of a new design strategy
2.2. Automation in construction engineering
2.2.1. The importance of human machine technologies
2.2.2. Worker safety on the building site
2.3. Automation in construction management
2.3.1. Monitoring project progress
2.3.2. Acquiring design and management information
2.3.3. Support of the work floor manager with PDAs
3. Conclusion
References
1. Introduction

1.1. The building industry tomorrow

Changes in building production are essential if the world of construction is to improve.

The changes are also necessary because the next few decades will see an enormous
migration into the cities. The forecast is that in 2015, 55% of the world's population will
live in the urban areas (see Fig. 1). These metropolises (densely populated inner cities
with their agglomeration) impose their own requirements on construction management
and production systems.

Display Full Size version of this image (15K)

Fig. 1. Quota of urban population.

The following developments occur in the Western European construction industry. In

Germany, building production has fallen by 35% in 5 years; in the Netherlands, by 15%
in 3 years. In other countries on the European continent, the construction industry is
hesitant. In Britain, the innovation process ‘Rethinking Construction’ was the prelude to a
change in the system. The development of the ‘chip’ and the ‘chip industry’ has
completely changed society as a whole. The developments in construction in recent
decades can also be attributed to these changes.

1.2. Changes in construction

The developments of the construction process are the result of a set of changing
circumstances and conditions. These changes encourage developments of technologies to
ensure the creation of a process that leads to improved performance for the client. These
developments are based on an analysis of the Status Report issued in 2001 by the CIB
Task Group TG27 ‘Human-Machine technologies for Construction Sites’ [1] and of the
Proceedings of the ISARC2003 Symposium: The Future Site [2].

In this analysis, automation in construction is addressed from the perspective of the

performance of building projects serving the client and the environment.

– How can a connection between performance requirements and building production be

established and improved through the use of automation in production?

– How can automation in construction engineering change the role of being a responsible
partner in a changing world?

– How can construction management systems contribute to the improvement of

production by automation?
When all building production is ultimately designed to lead to improved performance and
a satisfied client, it is always difficult to keep sight of the overall picture and this final
goal. Components develop and result in the required performance improvements. The
overview in Fig. 2 shows the relationship between the various aspects of automation in
construction. Construction management, construction engineering and performance
management help the managers meet the needs of the client.

Display Full Size version of this image (98K)

Fig. 2. Relationship between management, engineering and performance.

1.3. Examples of developments by automation

This paper looks at all three of the following aspects:

1. Performance management with a contribution about the development of new design

ideas to meet client requirements in a different way.

2. Construction engineering with a contribution about the improvement of Human

Machine Technologies, and about worker safety on the building site.

3. Construction management with contributions about monitoring project progress, about

collection of the design and management information, and about support of the work
floor manager with PDAs.

We will elaborate on these examples in Section 2.

2. Developments in automation in construction

2.1. Automation in performance management: the development of a new design

strategy

1. The challenge when building in metropolitan inner cities is the development of

production systems that go further than the Automation or robotizing of traditional
activities on the building site which are normally carried out on site by the builders. A
special form of Automation and Robotics is prefabrication. Prefabrication moves work
away from the building site to a factory. For the builders, this is an enormous
improvement because working conditions are checked and managed far more effectively.
Production is moved to a certain extent but does not really change. However, production
only really changes when new processes are developed. Functions are no longer assigned
to the traditional building elements and are no longer carried out with those materials that
people are used to.
2. Richard's contribution [3] draws an analogy with the development of the printed circuit
board. Under the term ‘reproduction’, he describes an approach that leads to the redesign
or reengineering of the construction process. “Reproduction implies innovative processes
capable of short-cutting the long sequential operations of craftsmanship nature—i.e.
capable of categorically simplifying the production, as notably illustrated by the analogy
of Printing/the Printed-Circuit/the Printed Plumbing Core. Using performance criteria, in
order to avoid a captive image from the past, one can identify promising options through
the “Technology Matrix” (where processes interact with materials) and thereafter
generate building system aiming at Reproduction”. “Reproduction=priority to ideas
rather than machinery”. “Reproduction is the introduction of an innovative technology
capable of simplifying the production of complex goods, of short-cutting long
sequential operations. Therefore, achieving more substantial economies than
mechanizing, automation or robotizing around the traditional construction methods”.
“Instead of investing straight into machinery, Reproduction is basically calling upon
Research and Development for “ideas” to generate a simplified process. Of course,
Reproduction is not necessarily available as a downright option: it is often present
together with some of the other degrees of industrialization”.

3. Richard's contribution gives a whole new dimension to Fig. 2. Richard invites us to

come up with new ideas. Not for improved production systems with or without the use of
automation or robotization, but new ideas focusing on the performances that ultimately
have to be achieved! All these new ideas will have to be generated by a combination of
new designs, new forms and new materials that meet the requirements for building in a
metropolis. This will create new production systems for the Future Site. Construction
engineering for metropolises (Fig. 2) can undergo an enormous impulse. Automation
creates the preconditions for following new avenues, which will bring us closer to the
performance requirements of both client and metropolis. The opposite also applies:
without automation, these new ideas cannot be developed into new processes.

2.2. Automation in construction engineering

2.2.1. The importance of human machine technologies

1. The safety regulations for building site work impose more and more restrictions on the
loads workers are allowed to carry, prepare and apply using only the resources of their
own body; but building contracts will expect an increasing amount of effort. Take high-
rise construction in metropolises and the attachment of wall cladding to these buildings,
for example. Fitting heavy windowpanes or attaching wall panels with great precision is a
challenge for the robotics industry to come up with new tools for this purpose.

2. The article by Choi et al. [7] presents a construction robot that is a hybrid type robot
using pneumatic actuator and servomotor. “The hybrid type robot can be used in glass
mounting on panel fixing. The hybrid type robot mechanism has a wide range of
workspace and precision, and consists of a serial and parallel part. The pneumatic
actuator has been widely used in industry site because of its low cost, compact high rate
of power/weight and reliability. The restricting factors preventing the use of pneumatic
actuators for accurate control arise from highly non-linear dynamic properties such as air
compressibility and friction effects, which combine to severely decrease time
responsibility and positioning accuracy. The sliding mode controller is adequate to such
as cylinder that is strong non-linear property. The developed construction robot with
pneumatic actuator using the sliding mode controller used in the work of attaching the
ceramic tile”.

3. With this article, Choi et al. make a significant contribution to the development of
human machine technologies (see Fig. 2) to help in heavy physical work in high-rise
construction. In spite of all the modern production systems, much of the work will
continue to be carried out on site. With regard to health, work speed and quality,
mechanization of the work on site will remain an important goal for the successful
development of major building assignments in our metropolises.

2.2.2. Worker safety on the building site

1. Complex high-rise construction work in a metropolis is an extremely risky

undertaking. Complex logistics on the building site and in full inner cities require
construction times to be kept to a minimum. This leads to highly compact building
processes and production systems that are sometimes unsafe and create many minor and
major risks for the construction workers.

2. “The work described in the article of Abderrahim et al. [5] deals with the development
of a particular security system, using both existing commercial technology and specially
designed equipment. The compulsory safety helmet required for all workers in
construction sites is used as the base to accommodate miniature positioning and
communication instruments. The position and ID of each worker is sampled periodically
and sent via radio to a monitoring station, where the information is compared to a
database containing the tasks and processes being performed in the site. According to
this, workers and machines' positions are known in each instant and risk situations may
be recognised immediately and therefore damage can be prevented. If certain workers
and particular machinery and equipment elements are not supposed to be in certain
locations for safety reasons, an automated system can be used to detect the situation and
make the adequate decision to prevent a possible accident. The proposed system is meant
for modern construction systems where workers and automated/semi-automated
machines coexist”.

3. If we apply the article by Abderrahim et al. to Fig. 2, we see that it can make an
important contribution to the minimisation of risks. The instrument is designed to localise
and detect the risks on site that cannot be prevented and to inform construction workers
with warning signals of approaching danger (e.g. machines or crane loads) and to prevent
people falling into openings in floors. By using databases, radio signalling and normal
radio communication equipment, automation (IT) can reduce the remaining risks on the
building site which cannot be prevented by collaborative engineering by improving
production systems. This makes it an important instrument in the final phase of risk
management. The automated system adds value to the development of high-rise
construction in metropolises by perfecting risk management.
2.3. Automation in construction management

2.3.1. Monitoring project progress

1. The complexity of building in a metropolis prompts the inclusion of performance

indicators other than the traditional ones in a contract. A traditional contract gives the
contractor the responsibility to supply products and to assemble them into a structure, and
he is given a certain amount of time and money to do so. He is also expected to use the
necessary capacity in terms of workers and machinery. In the traditional system, the
contractor provides a design with drawings and calculations. The new construction
assignment challenges the construction industry to carry out projects under new contract
conditions. The newness of these contracts becomes apparent from performance
indicators other than the traditional ones. The traditional performance indicators were
primarily time, money and a detailed design with materials to be supplied. The new types
of contract place responsibility more integrally on the contracting parties. This
supplements the traditional performance indicators with new ones and creates the need
for integral monitoring and checks of the project progress.

2. Navon's article [4] describes the options and developments using examples. “There are
also briefly described together with the concept of measuring indirect parameters and
converting them into the sought indicators. These are: (1) labor and earthmoving
productivity, based on measuring the location of workers, or earthmoving equipment, at
regular time intervals. (2) Progress, based on the above data, or data collected from a
tower crane. (3) A comprehensive control of construction materials, starting by
monitoring orders and purchasing up to the movement of the materials on site. (4)
Monitoring the status of guard rails in order to prevent falls from heights”.

3. If we apply Navon's contribution to Fig. 2, we see that developments in the world of IT

have a positive impact on the development of the possibilities of all kinds of aspects of
construction management. They are the tools the contract partners can use to monitor the
progress of complex contracts. The automated monitoring system adds value to the
development of new types of contracts.

4. Yagi's article [9] stated that it is difficult to manage related information by using
conventional model. He proposed a new concept of ‘Parts and Packets unified
architecture’. Data or information related to a product are carried by product itself and
can be handled to manage the whole system. It is a unified controller system, which
operates parts and packets together.

2.3.2. Acquiring design and management information

1. Effective, tight management of projects during the development, design, execution and
maintenance phases depends on a great deal of information. Without the right
information, management is more like gambling and guessing than informed control.
Construction in metropolises entails working with more partners than people are used to.
These partners not only work together on the same project, they also need one another
because they have their own projects which depend on one another. For example: flats
above shops, offices with shops above a railway station. Various owners all have their
own interest, backgrounds, needs, requirements, functional specifications, decision-
making processes, etc. These aspects each generate their own specific information, so the
manager who has to head up integrated projects in a metropolis is confronted by an
immense flow of information. This information is not fixed, so the manager also has to
rely on the quality of the information he is working with.

2. The article by Van Leeuwen et al. [8] discusses this problem and works out a proposal
for not distributing this information but for sharing the various information sources. “The
validity of information that a manager obtains from partners in a project can only be
guaranteed by sharing of the information resources. This means that, rather than
providing a copy of the information, the information is accessed at its source where the
provider of the information has full control (and responsibility) over it”. “To achieve such
sharing of information, Van Leeuwen et al. propose a change of the paradigm ‘distributed
product information’ from the supplier point of view to the consumer point of view.
‘Distributed’ no longer means ‘sent to many clients’ but rather ‘accessed at many
providers’. Sharing distributed information resources has the potential to improve
business processes in many ways:

• Avoiding unsolicited communication, the traffic of information is reduced, even if there

is an increased amount of wanted traffic;

• It improves the validity of information, because it remains under control of the provider;

• It increases the quality of information, since it can answer a specific request or even
result from a, possibly automated, dialogue;

• It helps to integrate business processes by keeping the relationships between the

processes and their output data active”.

3. In the article, Van Leeuwen et al. provide an important insight into the development
that ICT can stimulate possibilities for the exercise of construction management (see Fig.
2). With the right ICT tools, the manager (the client) has up-to-date information about all
production systems, all risks and uncertainties, and all design decisions and design
options. This information enables him to follow how plans and production are developing
on a daily basis (without lacking information) and how they ultimately meet the
requirements of the client. It would probably be impossible to complete these complex
construction projects in our metropolises without these kinds of ICT systems.

2.3.3. Support of the work floor manager with PDAs

1. These days, the on-site construction manager has serious problems having building
production information processed efficiently, quickly and on time. On complex high-rise
or underground construction projects in the metropolises, production information is not
only processed to monitor progress and quality. A lot of data about the vicinity
(groundwater level, stability of adjacent buildings, good traffic circulation) has to be
processed every day. This is not only required to monitor progress, but also to prevent
damage and ambient danger and to minimise risk.

2. The article by Kimoto et al. [6]: “This paper reports a development of mobile
computing system with PDA (Personal Digital Assistants) for construction managers on
construction sites. First, this paper describes the aim, the concept based on End User
Computing, and the essential element of the mobile system. This also shows the
necessary functions for the mobile computing, and the concept of this computer-aided
engineering system. Secondly, this paper describes the structure of the system and the
outline of subsystems: Progress Monitoring System, Inspection System, Checklist and
Reference System, and Position Check System”.

3. To convert the work of the on-site construction manager into a substantive role and less
that of an administrator of important information, it is essential to develop mobile
computing systems in accordance with the proposal put forward by Kimoto et al. The
reporting process is fully automated from the location in the project where the
information is checked or available. Using a mobile computing system in combination
with the distributed product information set out by Van Leeuwen et al. (see elsewhere in
this volume) would cut out a whole series of administrative activities throughout the
project and increase the efficiency of data management. All data on the various
construction management aspects in Fig. 2 are collected integrally and processed in real
time. When this data is linked to pictures from a digital camera and speech recognition in
the future, it will be a real help to the construction manager, who will then have more
time and attention for the actual content of the project.

3. Conclusion

The building assignment will focus on metropolises, which sets specific requirements for
performance management, construction management and construction engineering.

Clients need individual treatment and a specific approach designed to solve their problem
and meet their demands. They are less concerned in the size of the investment, but are
becoming more and more interested in the total cost of ownership and life cycle cost.
Nowadays, clients are less concerned with the structure itself. They pay more attention to
its functional use, and this primarily stimulated by the use of information and
communication technology in the projects.

Design strategies improve performance management.

Construction engineering is changed by the application of more industrial production,

sustainable production, mass individualisation, and intelligent building to improve
constructability.

Construction management has to deal with safety and health, uncertainty and danger.
Developments are taking place in risk management, value management and decision
support systems supported by partnering collaborative design, supply chain management.
Better ICT tools provide the manager with better information faster by using distributed
systems and PDAs.

These developments demonstrate that there is plenty of room for improvement in all
process elements of construction projects in metropolises.

This underscores the economic importance of automation in construction. The ultimate

goal is the value creation the structure is capable of.

References

[1] F. Van Gassel, G. Maas, International Status Report on Aspects of FutureSites, CIB
TG27 “Human-Machine Technologies for Construction Sites.” CIB 265. ISBN 90-6814-
119-8. CD-ROM.

[2] In: G. Maas and F. Van Gassel, Editors, Proceedings The Future Site ISARC2003,
Bouwstenen vol. 75 (2003), p. 675 TU/e.

[3] R.-B. Richard, Industrialised Building Systems: Reproduction before Automation and
Robotics, Automation in Construction 14 (2004), pp. 443–452 (this volume).

[4] R. Navon, Automated Project Performance Control (APPC) of Construction Projects,

Automation in Construction 14 (2004), pp. 469–478 (this volume).

[5] M. Abderrahim, E. Garcia, R. Diez and C. Balaguer, A Mechatronics Security System

for the Construction Site, Automation in Construction 14 (2004), pp. 461–467 (this
volume).

[6] K. Kimoto, K. Endo, S. Iwashita and M. Fujiwara, The application of PDA as Mobile
Computing System on Construction Management, Automation in Construction 14 (2004),
pp. 503–514 (this volume).

[7] H.-S. Choi, C.-S. Han, K.-Y. Lee and S.-H. Lee, Development of Hybrid Robot for
Construction Works with Pneumatic Actuator, Automation in Construction 14 (2004), pp.
453–460 (this volume).

[8] J. Van Leeuwen and A. Van der Zee, Distributed Object Models for Collaboration in
the Construction Industry, Automation in Construction 14 (2004), pp. 493–501 (this
volume).

[9] J. Yagi, E. Arai and T. Arai, Parts and Packets Unification RFID Application for
Construction, Automation in Construction 14 (2004), pp. 479–492 (this volume).
Fig. 1. Quota of urban population.

Fig. 2. Relationship between management, engineering and performance.